9 dead, 161 hurt in Jakarta bombing

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Flying the flag ... the broken windows of a neighbouring building provide a backdrop for the Australian flag on the Jakarta embassy. The huge blast blew out windows up to 30 storeys above street level in at least 10 office towers that surround the embassy. Photo: AP

Indonesia's national police chief has accused the man who built the Bali and Marriott hotel bombs of carrying out the huge blast that killed at least 9 people and wounded as many as 139 at Australia's embassy in Jakarta yesterday.

The bomb that shook the embassy district was planted outside the Australian mission. Last night the victims - dead and injured - were confirmed to be mostly Indonesian.

The police chief, General Da'i Bachtiar, said he had linked the bombing to the Bali and Marriott attacks on the basis of "evaluation and analysis by officers in the field". He believed "the perpetrators of the attack are from the terrorist network led by Azahari Hasin and Noordin Mohammed Top".

The two Malaysians have been on the run since the October 12, 2002, Bali bombings and General Bachtiar said he believed they packed explosives into a car which stopped near the heavily fortified entrance of Australia's embassy in Kuningan in central Jakarta.

"Based on our preliminary investigation, the explosion was caused by a car bomb just in front of the embassy, as we found some parts of a totally damaged car at the scene," General Bachtiar said.

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The huge bomb blew out windows up to 30 storeys above street level in at least 10 office towers that surround the embassy and left a huge crater near the heavy security gates where people queue each morning before being allowed to enter.

Security staff who man the entrance, people in the queue and passers-by are believed to account for most of the dead and injured. A female security officer told Metro TV: "What I saw in the front was nobody left alive because it happened right in front of the gate and the security people were there. There was no place to escape."

Yesterday's blast appears to have been bigger than the one that killed a dozen people at the JW Marriott Hotel 13 months ago - it blew out windows more than a kilometre away and was heard more than five kilometres away.

Leaders in Jakarta and Australia condemned the attack.

Without reference to the Madrid train bombings which took place in the last days of an election campaign in which, as in Australia, the governing and opposition parties had conflicting policies on the war in Iraq, the Prime Minister, John Howard, vowed that Australia would not be intimidated by acts of terrorism.

Describing the perpetrators as "evil and barbaric", the Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, committed the Labor Party to support all efforts by the Australian and Indonesian governments to "deal with them as harshly and as quickly as possible".

Campaigning for the Australian election has been halted for two days.

Eyewitnesses described office blocks peeled open like sardine tins, and a normally bustling thoroughfare littered with body parts and debris.

A tower of smoke hung over the capital as survivors carried wounded friends and colleagues to safety. Others, still dazed, searched for workmates and family members while the bodies of a man and a woman lay in the street, under a cover of newspaper and yellow emergency tarpaulins.

Harold Crouch, an Australian National University Indonesia expert, who was in the embassy when the bomb exploded, said: "The front door was blown off. There was glass and debris everywhere. Things were hanging loosely from the roof.

"If anybody had been in there they would have been very badly hurt or killed," Dr Crouch said.

The embassy, which was designed to withstand a bomb blast, suffered less damage than surrounding buildings but was still damaged by the huge explosion, which blew the gates down.

Dr Crouch, who was at a meeting with the defence attache, General Ken Brownrigg, said: "The entrance was completely ... I was shocked, it was badly wrecked," Dr Crouch said.

"We were told to run to the back of the building ... it was quiet and calm inside."

An officer from the neighbouring Malaysian embassy, Nor Azizi, who rushed to the Australian mission after the blast blew in the windows in his building, said: "There were the bodies of a policeman and a security officer and civilians lying along the road.

"I could not count the bodies because they were in pieces but I think there were more than five."

Budi Harianto, 30, who was in a queue of visa applicants, said: "It was like an earthquake, like thunder."

An employee of the Indosat phone company, Dedi Mulyardi, said he was in a building next to the Australian embassy when all the windows exploded.

"We were in a meeting and everyone panicked and tried to get out. Everyone was screaming and when I got out I saw the white smoke and people covered in blood," he said.

Alex Hutabarat, a 21-year-old student, said he heard a big explosion only five minutes after leaving the embassy, where he had applied for a visa.

"I heard people screaming 'Help! Help!"' Mr Hutabarat said.

"I saw a big smoke rising up from the embassy and many people lying on the ground ... At least 15 people, including three westerners, had been waiting in line in front of the embassy's gate to apply for visas."

With an election scheduled for Monday week, President Megawati Soekarnoputri flew back from a royal wedding in Brunei and urged Indonesians no to panic."I ask people to remain calm, to be aware of threats," she said.

Ms Megawati inspected the site of the bombing with Australia's ambassador, David Ritchie, and expressed condolences for the victims.

A spokesman for the embassy said Ms Megawati offered "every assistance" in fighting terrorism and Mr Ritchie had offered Australian assistance in helping to find out who carried out the attack.

The Indonesian Government was scheduled last night to hold a crisis meeting with the heads of the army, police, foreign and interior ministries.

The blast comes just weeks before the start of the second trial of Abu Bakar Bashir, the Islamic cleric accused of plotting the Marriott bombing and of the spiritual leadership of Jemaah Islamiah.